Stairway Stalker

The train smells of wet wool and somebody’s burnt coffee. I got on at the third stop, the one where the platform is always empty, where the ticket machine eats your coins and gives you nothing back but a thin metal taste in your mouth. I know the schedule by heart now. The 7:14. It gets me to the station at 7:28. That gives me two minutes to walk the long way around, past the shuttered bakery, past the bins that always smell of rotting fruit, to the bottom of the steps.

There are ninety-seven steps. I counted them the first time. Then I counted them again to make sure. Ninety-seven. That number sits in my head like a stone.

The girls come from the top. They pour down from the all girls school like water over a spillway, blue uniforms and white collars, their voices sharp and bright as broken glass in the morning air. They don't walk so much as drift, in pairs and trios, their heads bent together, their laughter skipping off the stone walls that line the stairway. Some of them hold phones out in front of them, filming each other, filming nothing. Some of them hold hands. Some of them walk alone with their earbuds in, their faces blank and private.

I don't look at them. Not yet.

I climb the steps slowly, my bag slung over one shoulder, my phone in my hand like I'm checking messages, like I'm lost in something important. The steps are worn in the middle, dipped by a hundred years of feet. Moss grows in the cracks where the mortar has crumbled. The railing is cold iron, painted black, chipped in places. I let my fingers drag along it as I climb. The sound it makes is a thin, metallic hum.

A group of three girls passes me going down. They're loud. One of them is telling a story about a teacher, Mrs. something, who caught someone vaping in the bathroom. The other two are howling. Their voices bounce off the walls and come back at me in pieces. I keep my eyes on my phone. I scroll through nothing. My thumb moves but my brain is empty.

They don't see me. They never do.

That's the thing about being a man in his thirties on a stairway at 7:29 in the morning. You're invisible. You're furniture. You're the guy who's late for work, the guy who forgot something at home, the guy who's just passing through. Nobody looks at you twice. Nobody wonders why you're climbing the same ninety-seven steps at the same time every day when your office is in the other direction. Nobody asks why you pause at the landing, the one with the good view, the one where the steps curve and the girls have to slow down.

I pause there today.

The landing is wide enough for two people to stand side by side. There's a crack in the stone wall that runs from the top to the bottom, a dark vein of something old and damp. I put my hand on it. The stone is cold. It's always cold.

Below me, the street is waking up. A van rattles past. A dog barks somewhere. The light is gray and soft, the kind of light that makes everything look like a photograph someone already took. I could take a picture right now and it would be beautiful. The steps curving down. The walls rising up. The girls in their blue uniforms, their hair catching the light, their shadows long and thin behind them.

But that's not what I'm here for.

I'm here for the ones who walk alone.

She comes around the bend three minutes later. I know her by her shoes. White sneakers, scuffed at the toes. She walks with her head down, her backpack slung low on her shoulders, her hair pulled back in a ponytail that swings when she moves. She's smaller than the others. Younger, maybe. Or just quieter. She doesn't talk to anyone. She doesn't look up.

I've seen her before. Three times now. Maybe four. She always comes at the same time, always alone, always with her head down. She's the one I think about at night, when I'm lying in bed and the ceiling is too far away and the room is too quiet. She's the one I tell myself I'm not here for.

I'm not here for her.

I'm here for the view. I'm here for the exercise. I'm here because the coffee at the shop near the station is good and I like to walk before I drink it. I'm here for a thousand reasons that sound reasonable when I say them out loud to myself in the mirror.

But she's coming now. And my hand is on the stone wall. And my phone is in my other hand.

I could take a picture. I could hold the phone up like I'm capturing the sky, the rooftops, the way the light falls on the steps. I could pretend. I've done it before. The camera clicks and the image saves and I look at it later, alone, in the dark, and I tell myself it's just a picture. It's just a girl on a stairway. It's nothing.

But it's not nothing. And I know it.

She's ten steps away now. Eight. Six. I can hear her footsteps, the soft scuff of her sneakers on the stone. I can smell her shampoo, something floral and cheap. I can see the small mole behind her left ear, the one I noticed last time, the one I can't stop thinking about.

I lift my phone.

I don't point it at her. I point it at the rooftops, the chimneys, the gray sky. I frame the shot carefully. I tap the screen to focus. I hold my breath.

And then I shift it. Just a little. Just enough.

Her reflection is in the corner of the frame. A blue blur. A white collar. A ponytail.

I press the button.

The sound is louder than I expected. It cracks the morning open. She looks up. Her eyes meet mine for half a second. Brown eyes. Tired. Surprised.

I lower the phone. I smile. It's a nothing smile, a sorry-I-was-in-your-way smile. I step aside to let her pass.

She doesn't smile back. She just looks at me, her face unreadable, her steps slowing for just a moment. Then she keeps walking. Down the steps. Away from me. Her ponytail swings.

I watch her go.

My hand is shaking. I shove it in my pocket. The phone is warm against my thigh. The image is saved. I'll look at it later. I know I will.

I climb the rest of the steps without stopping. At the top, there's a gate and a road and a row of houses with curtains drawn. I don't go through the gate. I turn around and walk back down, past the landing, past the crack in the wall, past the spot where she stood.

The steps are empty now. The girls are gone. The school has swallowed them.

I reach the bottom and check my phone. The picture is there. Her reflection is small, blurred, almost nothing. But I know it's her. I know the angle of her head. I know the way her hair falls.

I delete it.

Then I open the trash folder and delete it from there too.

I walk to the station. The 7:52 will take me to the city. I'll buy coffee. I'll go to work. I'll sit at my desk and stare at my screen and pretend that this morning was just like every other morning.

But I'll be back tomorrow.

The steps are waiting.